Review: Blackout by Robison Wells

Written By: Kellie - Feb• 02•14

blackout

Series: Blackout, #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publish Date: October 1st, 2013
Source: ARC
Goodreads

Rating: 3/5 – An action packed sci-fi/superhero read that left me a little confused.

About the book: Laura and Alec are trained terrorists.

Jack and Aubrey are high school students.

There was no reason for them to ever meet.

But now, a mysterious virus is spreading throughout America, infecting teenagers with impossible powers. And these four are about to find their lives intertwined in a complex web of deception, loyalty, and catastrophic danger—where one wrong choice could trigger an explosion that ends it all. – Goodreads

Thoughts: I’ll admit, it was the cover that initially drew me to requesting Blackout. I’m still not totally sure what it’s supposed to be depicting, but I like it.  Going even further, I wasn’t even sure what the book was really supposed to be about. The story itself didn’t quite live up to the cover for me, but it was still an interesting read.

Blackout’s stories centers on two seemingly random points. 1) Groups of teenagers are roaming the country committing massive acts of terrorism. 2)Random teenagers are gaining special powers. These two things were a bit much for the willing suspension of disbelief part of my brain to take on together, but I still enjoyed the story. The world building was mainily lacking on the terrorist side of things since we get to spend a fair bit of time reading about the abilities and the theories as to why they’re happening. It felt like I waited a long time for answers that never came which can always be kind of infuriating.

There are five main (or main-ish) characters who fall into either (and sometimes both) group. Aubrey was the easiest for me to latch onto since she started out not having much of an idea about what was going on, but as she learned the ropes she managed to be competent while still realistically flawed. Before the story even starts she had been trying to use her new powers to climb the social ladder of high school… so you know, not great. But the story leaves her a lot of room to grow into her character and her powers, so her arc ended up becoming my favorite part of the story.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next book to get a feel for where the plot is headed next before committing to read it. Still, I feel like this could be one of those series with an awesomely plotted payoff in the end. Fingers crossed!

Purchase Blackout
@Amazon (US) @Amazon (CAN) @The Book Depository

Second Opinions:
@Obsession with Books
@Xpresso Reads
@Books and Whimsy

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